The author of this article, Elias Torres, is the founder and CTO of the conversational marketing and sales platform Drift.
Our goal in 2021 was to make up the workforce with 44% women and 14% underrepresented groups. Despite some progress, the current figures are only 43% and 13%, respectively.
Explaining why this goal is so important, I have a history of moving from Nicaragua to the United States with my mother and siblings at the age of 17. At that time, a place was promised where anything could be achieved with knowledge and effort. However, looking back on the process of growth, I do not remember seeing business leaders, politicians, principals, etc. who are in a position like the author. Blacks in positions like Marc Benioff and Latinos in positions like Steve Jobs were never reported, so we can see a future where a small group can play an active role. It wasn’t.
However, with the election of President Obama in 2008, the perception of society changed at a very high rate. Needless to say, this had a great impact on people of color. Now that the new administration has been switched, President Biden is putting a lot of effort into the selection of cabinets that “reflect our diversity.”
His administration will represent the black and Latin communities, including UN Ambassador candidate Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Homeland Security Secretary candidate Alejandro Mayorkas. Human resources are included.
If I was 17 and wondered how I would have seen a former refugee steer the future of the United States, how my worldview would have changed and how I would have grown, I would devote myself to diversity. The motivation has doubled. In the end, if public institutions take such an active approach to diversity, it can be said that companies will surely follow suit.
Each company should have a 2021 DEI plan. Our plan is as follows.
Use employees instead of executives to get ideas
Although the boardroom is becoming more diverse, it is unlikely that significant progress will be made in the end. Rather than progress, it is seen when employees have a good combination of their skills and motivation.
This year, something like explaining this happened at our company.
A few employees came to me with ideas after seeing the extraordinary impact of the new coronavirus on a black-led business. They wanted to find a way to use our products to bail out black-led businesses affected by long-term shutdowns. They started working with BlackBoston.com owner William Murrell to figure out their needs and start thinking about how to connect him with visitors to the website. Working with William’s network, we gained a deeper understanding of the barriers to technology adoption in black-owned businesses and created a repeatable process to fill the gap.
These decisions and the resulting efforts were not made in the boardroom, which spends a lot of time thinking about ways to improve profitability. Rather, employees who wanted to improve their community came up with ideas and came up with ways to do it.
To make these efforts more general, we hired diverse recruiters to help our team better reflect the community. We also developed a balanced hiring process to guide minority groups to interviews and reduce prejudice when making hiring decisions. On the other hand, the attitude of learning from retirees is also important. To learn from them what areas we need to improve and encourage them to grow beyond the company.
Make sure that working from home does not interfere with expression and mutual trust
Currently, people are not working during normal business hours. I work from home while raising children. It is essential that the leader understands the difficulty and draws it to himself. Our company changed the fiscal year end to January, so the sales and market entry teams were able to enjoy and refresh their holidays with their families instead of rushing to work to reach their goals at the end of the year.
In addition, the role of the employee-led recruitment resource group (ERG) has been strengthened and expanded to ensure a safe space where colleagues can express themselves. Mutual trust is also essential in business. As a founder who recognizes himself as a symbol in the boardroom, he recognizes the value of providing a place where employees can express themselves and share what they have learned from their individual successes and failures.
While these things alone do not lead to a direct improvement in diversity, they certainly help build trust.
Accepting diverse perspectives, not just race and gender
The last thing we are working on is to recognize that appearance is not the only thing. Rather, the diversity of ideas and what they have is more important to how teams work together to achieve common goals.
After all, building a culture that doesn’t respect the differences will drive minorities out of the organization. As part of our focus on diversity, equality and inclusion, we encourage employees to recognize diversity of thinking as well as ethnic diversity, and raise issues at critical times. We impose accountability on ourselves.
2020 was a year of trauma and everyone shared the same fears and anxieties. Thankfully, at the end of this tunnel is a new administration that knows the value of respecting two promising vaccines and equal expression across gender and ethnic boundaries.
Despite these positive developments, efforts to empower diverse communities must be steadily maintained. In short, the systematic problem of not having enough small groups in the tech industry will not be solved by such efforts alone, but we will continue to pay attention to dealing with the problem and daily learning. I believe that it can be solved. Despite failing to reach its goals in 2020, 2021 will strive to maintain equality in the office under the leadership of the President (no matter where the office is).